BlackMagic Probe RPI Pico

Has anyone had any luck debugging the Pico on VSCODE as I have found it to be a nightmare.
Pico C/C++ development I assumed would be like Arduino, but it is clunky as #$%&.

The latest BlackMagick Probe looks to be the go, if you can find one. I bought 2 Jeff Probes only to find to that they are not 100 native and there is no info on how to port the the BMP tree over.
As the latest BMP branch has RPI Pico dual core support.

I assume that you could use a Blue Pill but I am just a beginner and was looking for something out of the box that I could afford.
I contacted Segger regarding the JLink Edu and there response was.

Blockquote
Dear Mr. Omond,

Due to the chip crisis we paused the production of the J-Link EDU
and J-Link EDU Mini.
I do not have a schedule date yet on when we continue the production.
Our other models are still available.

Is it at all possible to purchase a clone device and pay Segger the full amount to have it serialised and legitimised .
I am sorry, but we definitely will not go this route.
I understand your frustration but do not have better news for you at the moment. Maybe you can afford a regular J-Link?

Best regards,

/> Blockquote
Just wondering if Core Electronics have anything on the go that will be suitable…?

Thanks all…

Hi Greg,

I ran into this exact problem when getting into ARM development myself - 0 stock for seggers, and clone ST-LINKs working intermittently with openOCD. Could you describe your toolchain and programming software setup? Are you using something like PlatformIO?

One possible janky way of doing this would be to re-flash an official ST-LINK on a Nucleo board as a Segger EDU, but I’m only working with ST micros for now so I haven’t gone down that route yet.

We have a couple of Nucleo boards in our store if that’s something you’d like to pursue.

I’ve only done MicroPython multicore stuff on a Pico, and single core stuff in C on STM32, does dual core make it especially hard? I’d imagine two cores means two SWD interfaces, and thus you effectively need two debuggers.

-James

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Hi James
I am using VSCODE and the Pico SDK and the BlackMagic JeffProbe.
The latest Blackmagic git release has the RP2040 dual core support in it but the Jeff Probe is not stm32 based it is SAMD so the now branch wont work on it.
I am willing to give anything a go I am just spending money and getting nowhere. Iwas originally trying to get a DFRobot Ultrasonic sensor to give distance readings to my TTN lorawan app using arduino and lorawan shield. Liam suggested I may have more luck with a Pico and Waveshare shield. Just cant get that rotton sensor going properly.
Cheers Greg.

Good news the BMP 2.3 was just released for sale so I ordered one today.
We will see how it goes with the RP Pico…

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Hi Greg,

I’m looking for a good toolchain for C/C++ development on the Pico and it looks to me like this BMP is a good option. However, info on integration with VSCODE on Windows is scarce. Did you manage to get it going, and would you recommend it? If so, could you point me to any useful articles/tutorials/videos?

Any info would be much appreciated.

Many thanks,
Peter

2 Likes

Hi Peter
I ended up buying a Segger edu probe as the BMP was falling behind and genuine hardware was unavailable. The Segger will only debug 1 core at a time. but at least it works.
I have been flat out busy on my farm for the last six months so I haven’t had a chance to get back to it. I did manage to buy a genuine BMP probe but have not unpacked it as yet.
I will attempt to get back to it soon and update this post.
Cheers. Greg.

PS: the VSCODE integration was the easiest part. I was using it on a MacBook under OS X.

3 Likes

Thanks for the quick response Greg. I think I’ll get one of the latest BMP probes and give it a try.

Good luck on the farm!
Peter